5 ms·

Cars give people the freedom to go places and carry luggage that would be impossible or inconvenient on public transport. Taking this freedom away from people

by cbeach 3y ago

Cars give people the freedom to go places and carry luggage that would be impossible or inconvenient on public transport. Taking this freedom away from people is divisive, bordering on hostile. Ideologues in metropolitan bubbles talk a lot about getting rid of cars. They disregard, either ignorantly or willfully, the needs of everyone outside their bubble.

gmm1990 3y ago
Interesting, you could also argue using so many resources to get around is divisive.
- cbeach 3y ago
  How so? I pay the fair market rate for the resources I use, and the people producing them are happy with the transaction. Oh and by the way, I drive an electric car, so I don't produce any emissions in the residential areas I drive in (although like all goods, some one-off emissions were produced during manufacture)
  - acdha 3y ago
    You aren’t paying the full price for the roads you use or the parking, or the zoning requirements which force almost every property owner to subsidize your transportation choice. You aren’t paying for the additional healthcare required for the people who live around where you drive, or compensating them for the lowered quality of life, or compensating for the impact your much greater carbon emissions profile has on the entire planet.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > You aren’t paying the full price for the roads you use The large majority of the cost of roads is a sunk cost, because regardless of whether cars are used for individual transportation, roads would still be needed for delivery trucks, buses and emergency vehicles. The incremental cost of an additional car is generally not going to be more than what the car owner is paying in fuel taxes and property taxes on it. > or the parking, or the zoning requirements which force almost every property owner to subsidize your transportation choice. These are both the same thing. If you live in the suburbs, you paid for the space where you park your car. The actual problem is minimum parking requirements in cities, which are stupid and should be gotten rid of, but even if you did there would still be many people who want cars and choose housing that provides parking. > You aren’t paying for the additional healthcare required for the people who live around where you drive Modern cars are pretty clean in terms of particulate emissions, to the point that the exhaust is actually cleaner than the air that went into the engine in some of the cities with dirtier air. > or compensating them for the lowered quality of life This isn't math. Are you proposing to compensate them for the lowered qualify of life of not having a car? If someone else has kids, do I get to bill them for the cost of having to compete with their kids for scarce resources? Or should I bill them for not having kids and depriving society of their contributions? Everything everybody does affects the whole of society. At some point you either have to accept that they'll make choices you don't like and in exchange you get to make choices they don't like, or you have to embrace totalitarianism, in which one person gets to make decisions they like and if anybody else doesn't like it they can go to prison. > or compensating for the impact your much greater carbon emissions profile has on the entire planet. This isn't really a cars thing, it's a burning fossil fuels thing. You can perfectly well charge an electric car entirely from solar panels.
      - acdha 3y ago
        > This isn't math You might be unfamiliar with it but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. There’s a long academic literature around the cost of road infrastructure to the adjacent communities, and how that’s been disproportionately borne by people who are poor, undervalued minorities, etc. The average American city has a significant fraction of its area committed to car infrastructure for people who don’t live or pay taxes there, and it’s their communities divided by highways or unsafe high-speed roads, their health being lowered by the constant noise, their kids getting asthma at higher rates, and their families having to live with the consequences of fatal car crashes.
        AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        This is the kind of research that doesn't support the conclusion you think it does. Of course living near an overpass isn't any fun. So why do they do it? Because it's cheaper. But if you got rid of the overpass, it wouldn't be cheaper anymore, some upper-middle class professionals would move in there and the poor would have to go find some place they could still afford to live, which will be at least as bad or less affordable or else they'd have already moved there as it is. The actual problem isn't the overpass, it's the undersupply of housing that isn't next to an overpass. Build enough that they can afford to live someplace nice and they would. Meanwhile you can put industrial plants and warehouses and railroads and power lines next to the overpass instead of residential housing.
  - lantry 3y ago
    "fair market rate" without any externalities priced in.
  - CalRobert 3y ago
    How much do you pay for parking?
    - cbeach 3y ago
      I pay large amounts when parking in the nearest town (parking fees are one of the town council's most significant revenue streams, funding all sorts of externalities including homeless housing and business development). When at home I park on the driveway, which I paid a premium for when buying my house.
  - arrosenberg 3y ago
    420 ppm CO2. 421...422...
  - gmm1990 3y ago
    More of a society issue than individual. A middle class person will use a lot more resources than a poor person. The poor person will likely be more affected by the environmental change brought about by the resource use, less food secure etc.
nrabulinski 3y ago
You’re either ignorantly or willfully misunderstanding the problem. Cars existing isn’t bad on its own, it’s the fact that, especially in North America, it’s not only the default but also more often than not the only option people consider
- cbeach 3y ago
  There's a very authoritarian tone to your message. As if other people need to be "re-educated" to make choices that /you/ consider better.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    You will encounter such an argument whenever you make myopic and individualist arguments at the expense of larger and more systemic moral concerns.
  - EgregiousCube 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - eesmith 3y ago
    The point of the article is that "the car-centric transportation system now found throughout the U.S. can be traced in part to a deliberate revolution led by a relatively small group of people with a personal stake in the automotive sector ... car culture was largely forced on an unwilling public by car dealers, manufacturers, automotive clubs, and others who banded together to promote automobile use, calling themselves “motordom.”" If that wasn't authoritarian "re-education" to make choices that /motordom/ considered better, then what was it?
seabea 3y ago
Who said anything about taking away cars? However it shouldn't be necessary for me to walk in a ditch along a high speed road with no sidewalk just to get to the grocery that is less than half a mile away.
epistasis 3y ago
Taxis give people this freedom, but even more so. Car shares give people this freedom, but for less money. Despite these "bubbles" in metropolitan areas, they are still ruined by ever present cars. So you want a car? Great, go live in the 100% of the country that caters to your every need, by law. But please don't get in the way of others that want to build their own paradise. It doesn't concern you and you should mind your own business.
- cbeach 3y ago
  If taxis and car shares gave people what they wanted, then people would sell their cars and use these alternatives. But they evidently don't, because people prefer to own cars, and that's why they own cars. Don't condescend people by pretending you know what's best for them.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    If car centric suburban development gave people what they want, it would be cheaper than the very few places in the US thay allow one to survive by taxi and car share.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      It's not necessary for something for something to be cheaper in order for it to be what people want. People regularly pay more for things they prefer. Neither is it being cheaper proof one way or the other. Housing expenses are a complex system including a balance/imbalance of supply and demand. If suburbs are cheaper like-for-like, that's an indication (but not proof) that there's more supply in suburbs than demand relative to a style of living that's more expensive. Housing preferences are very much multi-dimensional, of which car vs non-car mobility is but one factor. Quality of schools, availability of jobs, need/desire for large amounts of interior or private exterior space, quiet, ease of resale, and hundreds of other factors conspire to set an individual household's willingness/preference to live in a place.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  So long as your view of paradise doesn’t interfere with mine, I 100% wish you the best as you try to make it. Where it does conflict, it is my business and I have the same right to engage in the discussion as you do.
slily 3y ago
I agree and I use public transit almost exclusively. I want better infrastructure for alternative modes of transportation, but every time the subject comes up it gets tangled up with ideological evangelism and comes across as condescending and authoritarian. Instead of framing it as some crusade against cars or using the political hammer of climate doomerism, argue for reduced traffic, better and cheaper options for people to get around, road safety... those are things that everyone can agree on and have been used to support mass transit projects in other countries successfully.

by cbeach 3y ago

gmm1990 3y ago

Interesting, you could also argue using so many resources to get around is divisive.

cbeach 3y ago
How so? I pay the fair market rate for the resources I use, and the people producing them are happy with the transaction. Oh and by the way, I drive an electric car, so I don't produce any emissions in the residential areas I drive in (although like all goods, some one-off emissions were produced during manufacture)
- acdha 3y ago
  You aren’t paying the full price for the roads you use or the parking, or the zoning requirements which force almost every property owner to subsidize your transportation choice. You aren’t paying for the additional healthcare required for the people who live around where you drive, or compensating them for the lowered quality of life, or compensating for the impact your much greater carbon emissions profile has on the entire planet.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > You aren’t paying the full price for the roads you use The large majority of the cost of roads is a sunk cost, because regardless of whether cars are used for individual transportation, roads would still be needed for delivery trucks, buses and emergency vehicles. The incremental cost of an additional car is generally not going to be more than what the car owner is paying in fuel taxes and property taxes on it. > or the parking, or the zoning requirements which force almost every property owner to subsidize your transportation choice. These are both the same thing. If you live in the suburbs, you paid for the space where you park your car. The actual problem is minimum parking requirements in cities, which are stupid and should be gotten rid of, but even if you did there would still be many people who want cars and choose housing that provides parking. > You aren’t paying for the additional healthcare required for the people who live around where you drive Modern cars are pretty clean in terms of particulate emissions, to the point that the exhaust is actually cleaner than the air that went into the engine in some of the cities with dirtier air. > or compensating them for the lowered quality of life This isn't math. Are you proposing to compensate them for the lowered qualify of life of not having a car? If someone else has kids, do I get to bill them for the cost of having to compete with their kids for scarce resources? Or should I bill them for not having kids and depriving society of their contributions? Everything everybody does affects the whole of society. At some point you either have to accept that they'll make choices you don't like and in exchange you get to make choices they don't like, or you have to embrace totalitarianism, in which one person gets to make decisions they like and if anybody else doesn't like it they can go to prison. > or compensating for the impact your much greater carbon emissions profile has on the entire planet. This isn't really a cars thing, it's a burning fossil fuels thing. You can perfectly well charge an electric car entirely from solar panels.
    - acdha 3y ago
      > This isn't math You might be unfamiliar with it but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. There’s a long academic literature around the cost of road infrastructure to the adjacent communities, and how that’s been disproportionately borne by people who are poor, undervalued minorities, etc. The average American city has a significant fraction of its area committed to car infrastructure for people who don’t live or pay taxes there, and it’s their communities divided by highways or unsafe high-speed roads, their health being lowered by the constant noise, their kids getting asthma at higher rates, and their families having to live with the consequences of fatal car crashes.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        This is the kind of research that doesn't support the conclusion you think it does. Of course living near an overpass isn't any fun. So why do they do it? Because it's cheaper. But if you got rid of the overpass, it wouldn't be cheaper anymore, some upper-middle class professionals would move in there and the poor would have to go find some place they could still afford to live, which will be at least as bad or less affordable or else they'd have already moved there as it is. The actual problem isn't the overpass, it's the undersupply of housing that isn't next to an overpass. Build enough that they can afford to live someplace nice and they would. Meanwhile you can put industrial plants and warehouses and railroads and power lines next to the overpass instead of residential housing.
- lantry 3y ago
  "fair market rate" without any externalities priced in.
- CalRobert 3y ago
  How much do you pay for parking?
  - cbeach 3y ago
    I pay large amounts when parking in the nearest town (parking fees are one of the town council's most significant revenue streams, funding all sorts of externalities including homeless housing and business development). When at home I park on the driveway, which I paid a premium for when buying my house.
- arrosenberg 3y ago
  420 ppm CO2. 421...422...
- gmm1990 3y ago
  More of a society issue than individual. A middle class person will use a lot more resources than a poor person. The poor person will likely be more affected by the environmental change brought about by the resource use, less food secure etc.

nrabulinski 3y ago

You’re either ignorantly or willfully misunderstanding the problem. Cars existing isn’t bad on its own, it’s the fact that, especially in North America, it’s not only the default but also more often than not the only option people consider

cbeach 3y ago
There's a very authoritarian tone to your message. As if other people need to be "re-educated" to make choices that /you/ consider better.
- uoaei 3y ago
  You will encounter such an argument whenever you make myopic and individualist arguments at the expense of larger and more systemic moral concerns.
- EgregiousCube 3y ago
  [flagged]
- eesmith 3y ago
  The point of the article is that "the car-centric transportation system now found throughout the U.S. can be traced in part to a deliberate revolution led by a relatively small group of people with a personal stake in the automotive sector ... car culture was largely forced on an unwilling public by car dealers, manufacturers, automotive clubs, and others who banded together to promote automobile use, calling themselves “motordom.”" If that wasn't authoritarian "re-education" to make choices that /motordom/ considered better, then what was it?

seabea 3y ago

Who said anything about taking away cars? However it shouldn't be necessary for me to walk in a ditch along a high speed road with no sidewalk just to get to the grocery that is less than half a mile away.

epistasis 3y ago

Taxis give people this freedom, but even more so. Car shares give people this freedom, but for less money. Despite these "bubbles" in metropolitan areas, they are still ruined by ever present cars. So you want a car? Great, go live in the 100% of the country that caters to your every need, by law. But please don't get in the way of others that want to build their own paradise. It doesn't concern you and you should mind your own business.

cbeach 3y ago
If taxis and car shares gave people what they wanted, then people would sell their cars and use these alternatives. But they evidently don't, because people prefer to own cars, and that's why they own cars. Don't condescend people by pretending you know what's best for them.
- epistasis 3y ago
  If car centric suburban development gave people what they want, it would be cheaper than the very few places in the US thay allow one to survive by taxi and car share.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    It's not necessary for something for something to be cheaper in order for it to be what people want. People regularly pay more for things they prefer. Neither is it being cheaper proof one way or the other. Housing expenses are a complex system including a balance/imbalance of supply and demand. If suburbs are cheaper like-for-like, that's an indication (but not proof) that there's more supply in suburbs than demand relative to a style of living that's more expensive. Housing preferences are very much multi-dimensional, of which car vs non-car mobility is but one factor. Quality of schools, availability of jobs, need/desire for large amounts of interior or private exterior space, quiet, ease of resale, and hundreds of other factors conspire to set an individual household's willingness/preference to live in a place.
sokoloff 3y ago
So long as your view of paradise doesn’t interfere with mine, I 100% wish you the best as you try to make it. Where it does conflict, it is my business and I have the same right to engage in the discussion as you do.

slily 3y ago

I agree and I use public transit almost exclusively. I want better infrastructure for alternative modes of transportation, but every time the subject comes up it gets tangled up with ideological evangelism and comes across as condescending and authoritarian. Instead of framing it as some crusade against cars or using the political hammer of climate doomerism, argue for reduced traffic, better and cheaper options for people to get around, road safety... those are things that everyone can agree on and have been used to support mass transit projects in other countries successfully.